Great Class. . . And A Good Lesson

We had a terrific class today. I'm attributing it to my meatball surprise. . .and to a modified training class.

Abby and I got to class the usual 15 minutes early. We used the time playing "find it" - I throw food on the floor and tell her to find it. A super fun game, but Abby isn't quite as good at is as mole so it is usually only fun when she plays by herself. I think that playing the game in the beginning when the rest of the class was coming in, setting up crates, and basically making a ruckus was more distracting for Abby then the people themselves. Once she realized everyone was there, they were already calm and training themselves.

Class started a bit differently this week, the instructor held up signs and we had to do them as quickly and as accurately as possible. This gave Abby a chance to get into training mode far away from everyone else. The class moved into heeling exercises and I decided to move as quickly as I could through the exercises to keep her mind off of the fluffy white mountain moving in front of her. Then came the practice course. Abby did GREAT! She was a bit nervous, but she is always a bit nervous. . .We had some extra time and the instructor said that we could do the course a second time! Abby and I just did the moving exercises the second time. I didn't want to run the risk of her not working, so I thought it safest to just do the easy stuff. But after finishing, I realized that we probably could have done the course a second time successfully. Oh well, one never knows the best thing to do with Abby until after it's too late - and I would rather play it safe and end it after a great run then to push too far and end on a crappy note.

I had a nice talk with one of the other students today; She was commenting on how well Abby looked today compared to last week. She said that she also had a nervous dog, but that she didn't have the patience to work with her, so she works her more stable shepherd instead. I agreed that Abby often tries my patience in training, and that it can be much easier working with a dog without fear issues. But later I got to thinking that working with Abby is often less frustrating then working with other dogs. I think that the main reason Abby does so much more then my other dogs is because I actually train her. And by train I mean breaking down each exercise into the basics, then continuing to work on those basics until they are rock solid. Once they are rock solid, I start all over again in a different environment. I do with Abby what trainers are supposed to do with all dogs. This makes her behaviors more reliable. Whereas my other dogs learn commands and I don't spend the time proofing them - meaning they don't know those commands everywhere we go. Because my other dogs don't have Abby's issues I don't work with them nearly as much. I expect that they can manage the commands that we barely worked on in stressful environments. And because I expect more from them, I am more frustrated when they don't do what I ask. With Abby, the training goes slower, but the result is a more accurate behavior. And when Abby is on in class, she looks better then some of the dogs that have less issues and have been doing this longer.